The Hooks provided the audio above to give you a sample of Hicks’ broadcasting voice. His broadcasts of Hooks games can be accessed online here.

Farmstros: How many seasons have you been calling Hooks games?

Hicks: This is my seventh season with the Hooks. I was hired by Ryan-Sanders Baseball in the fall of 2004, so I have been with the club since the inaugural 2005 season.

F: What is your approach to broadcasting a baseball game?

H: Well, I try to be well-prepared so that come game time, I can relax and essentially have a one-on-one conversation with the listener. I think baseball is a conversational sport, so I sit down and have a conversation with the listener every night.

F: Who is the most exciting player you have broadcasted?

H: That’s a tough question. This is my 23rd year in pro ball, and there have been so many exciting players over the years that it’s hard to single out just one. There were guys like Ricky Gutierrez, David Segui and Alex Ochoa during my time in Frederick, and Mike Kinkade’s 1997 season in El Paso (.385 average). Here in the last few years Wladimir Sutil has been a nightly highlight reel for the Hooks. Ben Zobrist, Hunter Pence and Josh Anderson made the 2006 championship season very exciting in Corpus Christi. But I suppose the most excitement I can recall one player generating on an almost nightly basis was Alex Cabrera, who was a first baseman and DH for the El Paso Diablos for a portion of the 2000 season. As I recall, he started that season with the AAA club, then came to El Paso in late April. I don’t remember all of his stats, but I do remember that he hit 35 home runs for us in only 53 games. I think he had 83 RBIs. One game at old Ray Winder Field in Little Rock, he homered in his last three at-bats, then homered in his first at-bat the next night. Cabrera was a right-handed hitter, and one of those home runs the first night he hit over the “screen monster” in right-center (approx. 55 feet high) and completely cleared the highway (four lanes each way) beyond the right field wall. At Cohen Stadium in El Paso, he hit a home run against Wichita that traveled so far beyond the wall in left-center that a marker was erected in the desert where it landed. I don’t recall the distance, but it was well beyond 500 feet. In late June, the Diamondbacks called him up to the big leagues, and Alex homered in his first at-bat and tripled off the top of the wall in his second at-bat. After that season, Cabrera signed with Seibu in Japan, and one year, he tied the single-season home run record that was set by the legendary Sadaharu Oh. I doubt I’ll ever see that kind of production from one guy over a two-month period ever again.

F: What broadcasting gigs have you had before this one?

H: I was with the Frederick Keys for the first six years of that club’s existence (1989-1994). They were, and still are, the Advanced-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. I was then with the El Paso Diablos for 10 years (1995-2004), the first four as the Double-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, the last six as the affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

F: What would your dream job be?

H: Outside of being a comedy writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, I would love to be calling games for the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and as a young boy was a fan of the Washington Senators, I rooted for the Cardinals in the National League. I was drawn to them because of their uniform, which is still the best in the game, and Lou Brock, who was to me the most exciting player in that era. My real dream job, though, would be the broadcaster for the Washington Capitals in the NHL.

F: What is your favorite book?

H: Another tough question. I really enjoy reading anything by John Grisham and Dan Brown. Many, many years ago as a teenager, a teacher gave me a paperback titled “Foul,” a book about Connie Hawkins and his journey in basketball to the NBA. A real eye-opener back then – I should go back and read it, today. But I think my favorite book is the one written by David Maraniss about the life of Vince Lombardi titled “When Pride Still Mattered.”

F: Do have any catch phrases?

H: No, absolutely not. The broadcast is not about me, it’s about the game and the players.

F: What do you do when it is not baseball season?

H: In recent years I have called high school football games in Corpus Christi and spent a few years doing play-by-play for the women’s basketball program at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. But I try to spend as much time as I can with my family in the off-season, and this school year spent some time as a chess instructor at my son’s elementary school and served as a volunteer referee in our local Upward basketball program.